......thoughts
I happened to meet Dhananjay today morning at Blood camp he and his friends had organized for Nirman. On my way back home I was thinking about the discussion I had with him regarding social issues and how they are trying to spread across the goal, motto and purpose of Nirman.
Human mind is such a fascinating thing. Even before an eye blinks it can travel across the globe and come to the pin point halt from where it started. The thought process which took off as I was waving good bye to Dhananjay too meet a similar fate. I am trying to share the thought process I went through, you may agree, disagree or criticize, partially or completely, my way of thinking. You will be welcomed.
Let me begin with a very controversial question: Is there ANY similarity between a terrorist and social activist? I believe that they are at the 2 opposite ends of the same curve. Terrorist always looks for destruction, violence and imbalance, Social Activist on contrary desires peace, equality and development. But still the question remains unanswered: What is the common thread that connects them? I feel it’s their state of mind or more precisely a complete devotion for a very well defined purpose and more importantly putting forth their purpose before self.
A year ago I came across a book named “Freakonomics”. An interesting point the author was trying to make was; doesn’t matter how noble or sinful our actions are they are always motivated by what he calls “Incentive”. Kindly make a note that incentive need not always be monetary or materialistic it can even be love, affection, ego, respect, importance or above all happiness. Every action we do good, bad or ugly is weighed against incentive we see. To give an analog, it’s a greedy algorithm. At every node we have set of options to choose from. These options are weighed against their respective incentive which in turn determines our actions.
So, what’s the point? The question I wanted to ask: Why is it so easy to find fanaticist/terrorists/Goons compared to social activist? A common man can rarely belong to class of Goons but why he is neither a social activist? He is the one who is most affected by social turmoil’s and imbalance. He is the one who is most frustrated with the dysfunctional social system. Then why, why he is the one who is most tolerant? It should not be difficult to answer this question. It’s quite simple he cannot see much of an incentive.
A common man has as much motivation to do a social good as much motivation terrorist has to do evil; the difference exists in the monetary incentives. A terrorist would come with pounds and dollars where as a common man has to worry about earning money for his daily bread, or may be for his own house or may be for children education or their wedding. Does he really have time to think about environmental issues and awareness, social causes and their betterment? And finally do we really think that a global and social upliftment can happen without the contribution of a common man.
No amount of awareness campaign will be enough to gather an attention of a man walking on the street, if you really want to make him get involved give him enough incentive. He may come forth and contribute to your social cause without realizing he is doing so? Here is an example, give an advertisement in a newspaper:
ADV 1: A graduate tutor needed to teach Math for underprivileged children for NGO
ADV 2: A graduate tutor needed Rs.2000/month.
No need to mention which adv will attract more applicants.
Every person may not have the depth and sensitivity towards a social problem, BUT every person can play a role in solving it. For social activist efforts towards solving a problem and seeing a better tomorrow may be good enough incentive to be motivated. Where as Rs.2000/month is a good enough salary for an unemployed graduate. He need not understand the bigger picture which you as social activists or a reformer can see.
When ever we think of an NGO, or organization working for social cause, why do we think it to be a non-monetary organization? Why can’t it be a full fledged Corporate Organization having 2 independent wings.
- Industrial Wing: May be any profit making industry, for that matter say IT services company having a well defined hierarchy, just like any other organization, a highly professional organization with sole goal of making profit.
- Social Wing: A wing full fledged devoted to social development. A complete monetary profit of Wing-1 is diverted to a social wing. Which as well would have people form various streams, from law to arts, from medicine to engineering; from school teachers to clerks getting paid as good as they would if worked for any public/private sector.
I know you may say it’s like building palace in air. But please try to understand the zest of the communication. A young youth who is socially motivated should not be in dilemma of taking risk purely based on financial circumstances. Why not there be world where people stop referring to some people as social activists and call them social professional. Why not there be a world where there would be social career is looked upon as an opportunity rather then risk.
I know the whole thing sounds stupid. But who cares. Thoughts are likes waves who says they necessarily need a purpose.
Human mind is such a fascinating thing. Even before an eye blinks it can travel across the globe and come to the pin point halt from where it started. The thought process which took off as I was waving good bye to Dhananjay too meet a similar fate. I am trying to share the thought process I went through, you may agree, disagree or criticize, partially or completely, my way of thinking. You will be welcomed.
Let me begin with a very controversial question: Is there ANY similarity between a terrorist and social activist? I believe that they are at the 2 opposite ends of the same curve. Terrorist always looks for destruction, violence and imbalance, Social Activist on contrary desires peace, equality and development. But still the question remains unanswered: What is the common thread that connects them? I feel it’s their state of mind or more precisely a complete devotion for a very well defined purpose and more importantly putting forth their purpose before self.
A year ago I came across a book named “Freakonomics”. An interesting point the author was trying to make was; doesn’t matter how noble or sinful our actions are they are always motivated by what he calls “Incentive”. Kindly make a note that incentive need not always be monetary or materialistic it can even be love, affection, ego, respect, importance or above all happiness. Every action we do good, bad or ugly is weighed against incentive we see. To give an analog, it’s a greedy algorithm. At every node we have set of options to choose from. These options are weighed against their respective incentive which in turn determines our actions.
So, what’s the point? The question I wanted to ask: Why is it so easy to find fanaticist/terrorists/Goons compared to social activist? A common man can rarely belong to class of Goons but why he is neither a social activist? He is the one who is most affected by social turmoil’s and imbalance. He is the one who is most frustrated with the dysfunctional social system. Then why, why he is the one who is most tolerant? It should not be difficult to answer this question. It’s quite simple he cannot see much of an incentive.
A common man has as much motivation to do a social good as much motivation terrorist has to do evil; the difference exists in the monetary incentives. A terrorist would come with pounds and dollars where as a common man has to worry about earning money for his daily bread, or may be for his own house or may be for children education or their wedding. Does he really have time to think about environmental issues and awareness, social causes and their betterment? And finally do we really think that a global and social upliftment can happen without the contribution of a common man.
No amount of awareness campaign will be enough to gather an attention of a man walking on the street, if you really want to make him get involved give him enough incentive. He may come forth and contribute to your social cause without realizing he is doing so? Here is an example, give an advertisement in a newspaper:
ADV 1: A graduate tutor needed to teach Math for underprivileged children for NGO
ADV 2: A graduate tutor needed Rs.2000/month.
No need to mention which adv will attract more applicants.
Every person may not have the depth and sensitivity towards a social problem, BUT every person can play a role in solving it. For social activist efforts towards solving a problem and seeing a better tomorrow may be good enough incentive to be motivated. Where as Rs.2000/month is a good enough salary for an unemployed graduate. He need not understand the bigger picture which you as social activists or a reformer can see.
When ever we think of an NGO, or organization working for social cause, why do we think it to be a non-monetary organization? Why can’t it be a full fledged Corporate Organization having 2 independent wings.
- Industrial Wing: May be any profit making industry, for that matter say IT services company having a well defined hierarchy, just like any other organization, a highly professional organization with sole goal of making profit.
- Social Wing: A wing full fledged devoted to social development. A complete monetary profit of Wing-1 is diverted to a social wing. Which as well would have people form various streams, from law to arts, from medicine to engineering; from school teachers to clerks getting paid as good as they would if worked for any public/private sector.
I know you may say it’s like building palace in air. But please try to understand the zest of the communication. A young youth who is socially motivated should not be in dilemma of taking risk purely based on financial circumstances. Why not there be world where people stop referring to some people as social activists and call them social professional. Why not there be a world where there would be social career is looked upon as an opportunity rather then risk.
I know the whole thing sounds stupid. But who cares. Thoughts are likes waves who says they necessarily need a purpose.
posted by Aniket at 3:46 AM
5 comments
